


Feast Or Famine

by alexiel_neesan



Series: Survie [3]
Category: DCU
Genre: Food, Gen, Post-Apocalypse, Wordcount: 500-1.000, urban survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-04
Updated: 2012-03-04
Packaged: 2017-11-01 04:06:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexiel_neesan/pseuds/alexiel_neesan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>The problem of food (and hope).</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feast Or Famine

There is enough food in Gotham —Gotham as they call it now, the area between the bridges— to feed all the... What is the proper term? Survivors? People? Inhabitants? Those who haven’t died yet, says the cold, clinical part of him.  
There is enough food, canned, preserved, buried, and enough clean water, in cisterns, in bottles, in reservoirs, to last the meager population of Gotham for several years. The trick is knowing where to find it.

The first ones to go had been the shops, malls and supermarket, ransacked and pillaged —who knew where most of the spoils had went.

Tim stops squinting at the map and gives in the urge to rub the bridge of his nose, his vision going blurry. He needs to sleep. But they... —they being Base Camp as Jason called it, and it had stuck, they being the three dozen of people who had banded together and stayed that way, unlike most groups they had heard of, they being the unofficial authority in Gotham, if only because they are the only ones who care enough, who are looked up to enough, who are trusted enough, who are wearing the Bat’s colors— they need food and supplies more.

There are caches all over the city, stocked in case of another even of the magnitude of No Man’s Land; some Bruce’s, some his, some Dick’s, satellite caves and hidden rooms in basements. Some they used already. Some he doesn’t know where they are —Dick’s, mostly, the older man having vanished with Damian before the third dark season. Tim wants to believe he’ll come back, with help, with supplies, with reinforcements, but... Tim hasn’t believed in hope in a long time, now.

He blinks back to the map, the coded notes, the red crosses for the empty places, the too numerous notes for the collapsed blocks. The Batcave and the Cave under the Wayne Tower went first. The nearest satellite cave to Base Camp is empty too, but they use it for storage; it’s a calculated risk —structural integrity is what everyone’s concerned about, it’s why Base Camp is literally a camp in a park, it’s why they stay away from buildings— better a risk than openly keeping resources. They have... an understanding, with most of the meta and villains that stayed here, all thanks to Jason. They all need each other. Strange new world...

Tim doesn’t realize he dozed off on the map until Jason is shaking his shoulder.

“Drake! Wake up—” Jason’s speech is still slurred, and from how close he is —how did he get that close from Tim? How had he not woke him earlier, when he had entered the tent or disabled the traps?— Tim can count the healing cuts and holes where the shrapnel had hit, and see the places where the movement of the older man’s jaws made the scabs break and bleed. He notices he had left the lamp on, when he fell asleep— a waste of resources, how could he have just fallen asleep like that—

And then he looks properly, and Jason is still touching him, and he looks more alive, more himself than Tim can recall.

“What—” Tim’s voice is a croak, forgot to drink and eat yet again. “What’s going on?”

Jason smiles. Jason _smiles_. “There’s been sightings, on the East side of the docks. Sightings of two faceless figures, one in purple, one in black.”

If the light seems a little brighter, if the map seems more useful all of a sudden— it’s probably nothing but a trick of his tired brain. He still sends Jason and two volunteers to the cache closest to the East side of the docks, just in case.

He doesn’t believe in hope anymore, but he can work for others’.  



End file.
